Happy Ingersoll's Birthday!

As far as most people are concerned, the 11th of August has no special significance. But atheists, freethinkers and skeptics everywhere should recognize it as a very special and significant date indeed. For on this day, we commemorate the birth of the most famous freethinker that most Americans have never heard of, the most fearless and possibly the most eloquent defender of nonbelief in our nation’s great and storied history – the illustrious Robert Green Ingersoll.

Ingersoll’s name is little recognized today, but in his day he was one of the most famous Americans alive. During the mid-1800s, prior to the invention of television and radio, oratory was considered public entertainment, and great crowds would eagerly pack theaters and lecture halls to hear famous orators give speeches. As Susan Jacoby wrote in her powerful book Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, this was the era when people “considered it fun to sit or stand for hours and hear lecturers discuss Shakespeare’s sonnets, the poetry of Byron, the philosophy of Voltaire… evolution, electrification, the germ theory of disease, or woman suffrage.” And in this era of lively public debate, Ingersoll’s name stood out as one of the, if not the, best-respected and most sought-after. In January 1893, when Ingersoll was to speak in Dowagiac, Michigan at the dedication of a theater built by the philanthropist Philo D. Beckwith, the local Dowagiac Times declared that “we shall be able to sit in the finest equipped and decorated theater in America and listen to the greatest reasoner, advocate, poet and orator the world has ever known”.

Lest you think that descriptions such as this are wild exaggerations, consider that despite living in an era before television cameras, before microphones, and before mechanized transportation, Ingersoll still managed, on one occasion, to draw fifty thousand listeners (source). He repeatedly crisscrossed America on the lecture circuit, speaking not just in large cities but in small towns throughout the Midwest and the South; and everywhere he went, he filled lecture halls to capacity, attracted ticket scalpers, and drew people who were willing to travel for hundreds of miles and stand in line for hours and hours just to hear him speak. Many famous Americans were friends or admirers of Ingersoll’s, including Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Ulysses S. Grant, Andrew Carnegie, Clarence Darrow, and Thomas Edison. After hearing Ingersoll speak on one occasion, Twain wrote to his wife, “What an organ is human speech when it is employed by a master!” And, despite living in a time when Americans still could be (and still were) prosecuted for blasphemy, he was a dedicated humanist, a fearless freethinker, and an uncompromising foe of orthodox religion in general and Christianity in particular.

Ingersoll was born on this date in 1833 in Dresden, New York, an upstate region that had experienced so many waves of religious revival it was known as the “burned-over district”. His father, John Ingersoll, was a Presbyterian minister, and though young Robert by all accounts had a strong relationship with his family and called his father loving and generous, he also wrote that his gloomy theology “filled his sky with cloud and storm”. Later in life, Ingersoll spoke of how his congregation considered the Sabbath day “altogether too holy to be happy in”, describing the aura of gloom and misery that descended on the congregation every Sunday because “it was thought to be a kind of sin to be comfortable while you were thanking God”. He added that “when we got home, if we had been good boys, and the weather was warm, sometimes they would take us out to the graveyard to cheer us up a little. It did cheer me. When I looked at the sunken tombs and the leaning stones…. the reflection came to my mind that the observance of the Sabbath could not last always.”

His family moved around constantly, and as a result, young Robert was largely self-educated. But this was not necessarily a disadvantage in those days; at age twenty-one, he passed the bar exam in Illinois, where he was living at the time, and became an independent lawyer. Ingersoll was a staunch abolitionist, and joined the Union army as a colonel when the Civil War broke out. He participated in the Battle of Shiloh, where his regiment was captured by the Confederates but released on condition that they not return to battle, a common practice of the day. After the war, he served as Illinois’ Attorney General – the only political post he would ever hold, due to his outspoken freethought views. Then, as now, loud and frequent public declarations of piety were a prerequisite for holding public office, and Ingersoll was already making a name for himself in the other direction on the lecture circuit. In an editorial after his death, the New York Times observed that only his outspoken irreligious views prevented him from “[taking] that place in the… public life of his country to which by his talents he would otherwise have been eminently entitled.”

Despite this, Ingersoll’s oratorical skills were in great demand throughout his lifetime. He frequently gave speeches on behalf of Republican candidates (the Republicans being the progressive party in those days), and his advocacy helped elect a good many of them to office. In particular, his nomination speech on behalf of James G. Blaine for president at the Republican National Convention in 1876, dubbed the “Plumed Knight” speech, attracted national renown and set the gold standard for political oratory in the country for years to come, although Blaine did not win the nomination. In 1886, Ingersoll also defended Charles B. Reynolds, a New Jersey man charged with violating the state’s anti-blasphemy statute. Reynolds was ultimately convicted, but it was a Pyrrhic victory for the prosecutors; Ingersoll so effectively discredited the concept of a blasphemy law in the public’s eyes that few such prosecutions were ever attempted afterwards.

Both in his professional career and his personal life, Robert Ingersoll was a steadfast defender of the Bill of Rights and the true ideals of America, and a friend to those struggling for liberty everywhere. He spoke out tirelessly not just against religion, but against all evils that oppress the mind and chain the spirit. He was, for example, a fierce foe of slavery and of racism, which was still extremely common in his day; a tireless opponent of corporal punishment and child abuse; and an unapologetic advocate of female suffrage. In the 1800s, it need scarcely be noted, all of these were radical positions.

Ingersoll’s lectures blended profound wisdom and courage with a warm, friendly charm and knowing humor, and his positive vision of a human future undergirded by reason and suffused with happiness stands out like a beacon. Thankfully, his eloquence has not been lost to us. His completeworks, most of which he had committed completely to memory for his public lectures, are freely available on the Internet. We even have a few rare recordings of his voice, among the first sounds ever recorded on the prototype phonograph built by a prolific young inventor named Thomas Alva Edison.

Though Robert Ingersoll has long since passed on, the flame of freethought kindled by his words has never gone out. From generation to generation, through the darkest depths of fundamentalist resurgence and the bright dawnings of reason’s victories, the torch has been passed from hand to hand. And everywhere it has passed through, it has kindled new lights in turn. There is more truth, beauty and wisdom in his works than in the Bible, the Qur’an and the Book of Mormon put together; and although we cannot and do not worship him or his writings, we can and do draw a powerful example from them. In times such as ours, we need a hundred more like him.

In case any of my readers are unacquainted with Ingersoll’s writings, I will close this post with a selection of some of my favorite quotes from his published essays:

This brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock; but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights, and left all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning of a grander day.

He loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to tears. He sided with the weak, the poor, and wronged, and lovingly gave alms. With loyal heart and with the purest hands he faithfully discharged all public trusts.

He was a worshiper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote these words: “For Justice all place a temple, and all season, summer.” He believed that happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep tonight beneath a wilderness of flowers.

I have a little short creed of my own, not very hard to understand, that has in it no contradictions, and it is this: Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.

Somebody ought to tell the truth about the Bible. The preachers dare not, because they would be driven from their pulpits. Professors in colleges dare not, because they would lose their salaries. Politicians dare not. They would be defeated. Editors dare not. They would lose subscribers. Merchants dare not, because they might lose customers. Men of fashion dare not, fearing that they would lose caste. Even clerks dare not, because they might be discharged. And so I thought I would do it myself.

It is far better to give yourself sometimes to negligence, to drift with wave and tide, with the blind force of the world, to think and dream, to forget the chains and limitations of the breathing life, to forget purpose and object, to lounge in the picture gallery of the brain, to feel once more the clasps and kisses of the past, to bring life’s morning back, to see again the forms and faces of the dead, to paint fair pictures for the coming years, to forget all Gods, their promises and threats, to feel within your veins life’s joyous stream and hear the martial music, the rhythmic beating of your fearless heart. And then to rouse yourself to do all useful things, to reach with thought and deed the ideal in your brain, to give your fancies wing, that they, like chemist bees, may find art’s nectar in the weeds of common things, to look with trained and steady eyes for facts, to find the subtle threads that join the distant with the now, to increase knowledge, to take burdens from the weak, to develop the brain, to defend the right, to make a palace for the soul. This is real religion. This is real worship.

When I left the faith, back in April of 2000, I soon discovered Ingersoll’s writings. I was searching to find others who had come to similar conclusions as I had. I bought an old copy of “Ingersolls 44 Lectures” and devoured it, read it twice, underlining segments that I felt were profound. I even found an old portrait of him on the web, Photoshopped it, put “Ingersoll the Magnificent” under it and had it put on a T-shirt. Several friends and acquaintances, after seeing me in the shirt asked who Ingersoll was. I answered, “an old friend”. Thank you so much for reminding me of the wonderful impact this man made on his world, and mine.

Philip Thomas

Interesting. I also lost my faith in April 2000. But I didn’t come across Ingersoll and I returned to the faith again in May…

tminuspi

The ol’ Bob-O-Rama kicked arse and took names, he did! Would’ve made our greatest President EVER had it not been for politics as usual.

http://thegreenbelt.blogspot.com The Ridger

Great post on a great man! Thank you for reminding us of his works.

http://www.patheos.com/blog/daylightatheism/ Ebonmuse

I also lost my faith in April 2000. But I didn’t come across Ingersoll and I returned to the faith again in May…

Well, his writings are still out there, you know. :) And one’s choice of religion is a decision that, once made, can always be unmade…

Philip Thomas

the choice to be an atheist is not exactly a choice of religion, but I return the compliment nonetheless.

tobe38

I didn’t know much about him prior to this post, but I intend to find out more now. The creed you quoted stopped me in my tracks. Brilliant.

http://Wind-Walkers-Guild.org Gregory Lee Williams

What can possibly be above thought? Regardless of your answer it will be what you think. Therefore the only rational conclusion is nothing can be above thought. There is a great deal of difference between what an individual has been taught and what they know. Given the simple algebraic premise that an unknown can be determined with two knowns reveals the reality that a fact is the product of all other facts.

quote from Robert Green Ingersoll “Liberty is the blossom and fruit of justice” “Morality is the melody of the perfection of conduct”

Robert Green Ingersoll raises the high idea that the moral compass of any individual should be benevolent wise choice based on natural law rather than superstition.

Adam Lee of Daylight Atheism

Adam Lee is an atheist writer and speaker living in New York City. He created Daylight Atheism to push back against undeserved privileging of religion and to encourage atheists to step out of their closets, into the daylight, and take our rightful place at the table of society’s discourse.